King's Mill

Summary

Water-powered corn mill, 1829.

Reasons for Designation

King’s Mill is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* an excellent example of an early-C19 water-powered corn mill which retains a good collection of historic machinery, with features and fittings which illustrate the milling process from start to finish;
* an industrial building of some architectural presence, robustly built in local materials, which is little altered, and which in its form and composition continues to illustrate its function;
* a characterful interior, continuing the robust quality of the exterior, with simple joinery, and an extensive collection of fixtures related to the industrial process.

Historic interest:

* occupying a site used for milling possibly for many centuries, rebuilt in the early C19, and providing an illustration of the industrial process in that period.

Group value:

* with Grade II-listed King’s Mill Bridge, with which the mill forms a picturesque ensemble.

History

King’s Mill was built as a water-powered corn mill on the river Stour, shortly before 1830. The foundations of an earlier building are partially visible, and records suggest the site may have been home to a mill from the Saxon period.

A newspaper advert from 1829 advertised the ‘newly-built’ mill for rent, and describes its advantageous location on ‘that never-failing river Stour’, adjoining the road from Bristol to Poole. It comprised ‘one water-wheel of sufficient power and machinery for driving two pairs of excellent stones for grinding wheat, there is also an additional pair of stones for barley, with a smut machine, a flour ditto, dressing mill, lifting machine, and every other requisite for the flour trade; and stores sufficient to hold upwards of 1000 quarters of grain; with a wagon house, stable for eight horses, piggeries, and other outbuildings’. Accompanying the mill was a ‘neat and comfortable dwelling’, King’s Mill House. A range of ancillary buildings to the north-east of the mill have been lost. The house was rebuilt later in the C19.

The land between the weir spillway and the sluice gates was breached in the late 1920s or early- 1930s, diverting the river flow from the headrace into the millpond; the weir survives as a series of flagstones on the northern side of the millpond. Records from the mid-C20 note that by then, a lack of water pressure meant the mill no longer worked. In the period since, most of the fabric of the wheel has been lost. The internal workings survive well, illustrating the industrial process. Restoration work in the 1990s included the replacement of windows, and repairs to doors and the roof, and the retaining walls to the headrace leat were partially reconstructed.

Details

Water-powered corn mill, 1829.

MATERIALS: constructed from Marnhull limestone rubble with a slate roof.

PLAN: the mill stands on the east side of the River Stour. It has a rectangular footprint, orientated east-west. The west elevation held the breast-shot water wheel, originally fed by the headrace leat from the north. The millpond is to the north-west, with a sluice gate separating it and the leat. The land between the weir spillway and the sluice gates was breached in the late 1920s or early- 1930s, diverting the river flow from the headrace into the millpond. The eastern retaining wall of the leat has been truncated to the north of the mill.

EXTERIOR: a two-storey building with an attic beneath a pitched roof. The east gable has a central double-height doorway, and a taking-in door in the attic. The south elevation has four window bays; most openings are beneath segmental arched heads, and windows, which are modern replacements, have timber frames. The foundations of the previous building are visible around the base, and there is a truncated remnant of a retaining wall. The north elevation has an off-centre doorway with a single ground- and first-floor window on either side. Markings at first-floor level show that there was once a pitched structure attached to the elevation, and openings in the masonry with iron rods show that the mechanical processes once extended beyond the main range. The west gable is blind but for a three-light casement in the attic. Irregularities toward the base of the masonry suggest alteration and rebuilding, or the incorporation of earlier fabric: there is a section with large blocks of dressed stone, recessed sections, and a rubble relieving arch. Remnants of the water wheel remain in place at the bottom of the elevation: the iron primary wheel shaft and wheel hub, and the rim-wheel shaft; the majority of the remainder of the timberwork of the structure has been lost.

INTERIOR: the mill has an internal framework of cylindrical cast iron posts supporting deep chamfered cross beams with closely-spaced joists to the timber plank upper floors. There is a steep, open-riser stair rising adjacent to the south elevation. The roof structure consists of three collar trusses with two tiers of butt purlins and coupled rafters. There is a vertical ridge piece, probably inserted during the 1990s restoration.

The milling process is undertaken over three floors, beginning in the loft, or bin floor, using gravity to aid the process. The whole grain was raised to the upper floor for storage by an external sack hoist, driven, indirectly, by the waterwheel. The loft has a raised central walkway with sunken grain storage bins with chutes along either side. The floor has various apertures for transferring material and for housing moving parts, and various timbers are attached to the roof structure providing a framework for the machinery.

Grain was transferred from the loft to the stone floor, below, through a series of timber chutes with canvas funnels. There were originally three pairs of under-driven millstones enclosed in circular timber tuns; two survive, and the third has been partially dismantled. The principal elements of the driving mechanism appear to survive. There are various timber frameworks and apertures in the floor. A block of masonry in the west gable is inscribed ‘1799’.

On the ground floor, or meal floor, much of the driving machinery and gearing of the mill survive, including the wheelshaft, iron pitwheel, the gearing to the drive shaft (wallower) and spurweel. A Hurst frame supports and encloses the machinery. The meal was passed through chutes to stone floor to be bagged. At the eastern end is an enclosed section forming a small office. The floor is laid largely with flagstones, with occasional sections of brick.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: running parallel with the west gable of the mill is a rubble retaining wall. This formed a headrace leat from the river, and supported the waterwheel. Sluice gates between the leat and the millpond survive at the northern end.

There is a second section of retaining wall adjoining the north-west corner of the mill. This supports a paved platform in front of the north elevation, upon which a structure formerly stood. It is presumed to have been truncated to the north, having once extended to form the east side of the headrace. These sections of wall were partially rebuilt in the 1990s.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

102734

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Hill, M, Newman, J, Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England. Dorset, (2018), 387

Websites
'Marnhull', in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Dorset, Volume 3, Central (London, 1970), pp. 148-160. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/dorset/vol3/pp148-160, accessed 22/07/2019 from https://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/dorset/vol3/pp148-160
Kings Mill, Kings Mill Lane, Marnhull (reef MDO27627), Dorset HER, accessed 13/12/2019 from https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MDO27627&resourceID=1012
Martin Bodman Research Notes February 2002, Mills Archive, accessed 12/12/2019 from https://catalogue.millsarchive.org/uploads/r/null/8/2/8/828f7f441048fb7059517120dba8a27e86e94dd59a6c07d61f939055cc8d6ccd/_home_artefactual_digi_objects_Rest_4386.pdf
Item TYRN-06756 - Marnhull (King's) - Notes and owner details, Mills Archive, accessed 13/12/2019 from https://catalogue.millsarchive.org/uploads/r/null/3/7/0/370ad4e9c087d292e1d707bfb835e2eddf3295970a6c1a2848d656200fb50f4d/_home_artefactual_digi_objects_Rest_6756.pdf

Other
Dewar, HSL, The Windmill, Watermills and Horse-Mills of Dorset. 1959. Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, vol 82, 1960
‘Marhull, Dorset, To Be Let By Tender’, Dorset County Chronicle, 21 May 1829, 1
‘Dorsetshire. Eligible Freehold Investment’, Sherborne Mercury, 16 May 1836, 1

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